Bijou
by xstashhjonasx
Summary: A story about acceptance, love, family, failures, and successes; realizing your own quirks & finding light in a black-and-white world, through a girl named Bijou. Did you know that Bijou, in French, means jewel? We're all diamonds in the rough, after all.


**Author's Note: **So I was inspired by _House Rules _by Jodi Picoult. Like I said before, first chapters are always the hardest to write. But I do hope you review & leave your honest opinions as well as constructive criticism, because I would like to improve daily. :-) Thank you, enjoy! xox

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><p><strong>One<strong>

**[5 Years Ago: April 2006]**

_Draco hated the _eerie simplicity to the well-organized pediatric office that belonged to Dr. Hermione Granger. He hated the white tiles, the white paint of the walls, the bright fluorescent lights of the ceiling, and the bland accessories strewn carelessly, indifferently, across the less-than-comforting office. It was too cold, too bitter, and never welcoming no matter how many times he set foot in the pediatric ward of St. Mungo's.

He and Astoria had been going to the pediatricians-slash-Healers of St. Mungo's since Scorpius had been born. They were Muggle and wizardly trained to fight any malady, any atrocity, and any traumatic distress that wanted to creep its way through their children. Astoria felt relieved going to the pediatrician, but Draco knew his wife better: their blood status made her feel queasy sometimes.

Like Bijou's pediatrician, Hermione; who had also once been Draco's sworn enemy in the days of Hogwarts. And yet, when the talented witch first opened her office door while conjuring two cups of raspberry tea, Draco knew the smile was sincere. She had moved on from the immaturity and the ignorance of their past lives. She was not going to let his bigotry interfere with her medical practices; she was there for the children—no matter if they were aristocratic purebloods, half-bloods, Muggle-born, or even Squibs. She accepted them all—including the parents.

Her methods were different than the other Healers. For starters, she had been trained once for Auror practices, had gone to Muggle school (Yale University for her PhD), and then trained for her profession as a Healer. At thirty-six, she was the highest ranking pediatrician in the Wizarding community worldwide. She also published many reports and textbooks on pregnancies, children, adolescence, and the scientific maturity that happens in each life stage. She had recently published a book about Muggle diseases, disorders, and syndromes. She had many achievements, many books, many colleagues internationally who thought highly of her, many clients, and knew a lot of parenthood.

But she wasn't a mother.

Merlin's beard, she wasn't even _married!_

Before Scorpius was born, Hermione had just been officiated as the Head of the Pediatric Ward at St. Mungo's. She was also the younger ever appointed—and the first Muggle-born—at twenty-five. While she was building an empire for the medical protections of infants, toddlers, children, and young teens, Draco was marrying Astoria and expecting the first of many kids. They were living in Malfoy Manor, at the expense of his father's wealth, and Draco remembered when Astoria showed him the clipping of _The Daily Prophet_, her belly evidently noticeable.

Draco protested at first. Why see a pediatrician? More importantly, one who was no married and had no biological experience to pregnancies and childbirth? Why hire a midwife? Why be so … _Muggle-like_, when magic could assist at any given moment?

But Astoria expressed that after reading Dr. Granger's first book on pregnancy and childbirth, there could be a lot of complications—especially if she was pushing toward a natural birth. And since St. Mungo's was not close to the manor, since she couldn't Apparate while expecting, she wanted to hire a qualified Healer who studied in Muggle School to become a midwife—meaning, a stay-at-home nurse.

In the end, Astoria became fascinated by Muggle medical practices. She had an entire bookshelf collection of Dr. Granger's published works and, whenever Scorpius or Bijou were ill, she would conjure the right book to assist the needs of her children. They only went to Granger's office for emergencies and routinely checkups.

It seemed, however, that they were going to Granger's office too much for Bijou.

With Scorpius, Draco and Astoria visited the pediatric center once every six months. But Bijou was a different case—a _special_ case, her grandparents liked to call her.

There was never any emotion settling in the depths of her icy eyes whenever she glanced at her parents. Bijou's favorite day of the week was Wednesday: it fell right in the middle. Since she was a year old, she liked potion kits and she liked organizing the kits from the year she bought them. Noises like _tsk _and the _pop_ of Apparition made Bijou grab at the roots of her hair and, on several occasions, Draco found her licking walls and humming made-up lyrics to herself underneath her breath to keep herself sane. Several times, her anomalous behavior created uncontrollable magic. The only time she could control it was if Draco showed her something of the color yellow; yellow was her favorite color.

The time Draco and Astoria noticed a difference in her behavior was Christmas two years ago. She had not developed any speaking skills yet; Christmas had fallen on a Wednesday, and she left the table to try out the latest kit. When Astoria had Vanished the kit with her wand, telling her to get back to the table, Bijou had stripped naked, running her fingers like claws against the newly painted walls of her bedroom.

Since then, Bijou's behavior did not improve. In fact, her behavior worsened.

Bijou's first pediatrician since birth, Twyla Warrick, had explained that it was nothing to worry about; that younger children often wanted attention. But Draco and Astoria had scoffed angrily after that meeting, knowing fully well that they treated Scorpius and Bijou equally. They _loved_ them equally. There was no favoring, no extra spoiling; it was a bunch of rubbish from Healer Warwick.

The next pediatrician, once a Muggle neurologist, Lobelia Plunkett, had run several tests—but Bijou had lit fire to Healer Plunkett's hair, and that was the last any had seen of her.

At four years old, Bijou had traveled to other European Wizarding hospitals to see what could possibly have created this _phase_. Astoria had started to grow sick of seeing so many Healers, but Draco was persistent; he wanted to know the cause of Bijou's behavior. It had created so much stress between the marriage that they resorted to a marriage counselor, recommended by Pansy and Adrian Pucey. The counselor, Thelma Mansfield, said "not to worry … all children develop obsessions … but the phases will fade …"

Draco had had enough. He scheduled an appointment with Granger as an emergency; she had given one look at Bijou's blank stare and the way she knitted her hands nervously at the sight of the color white, and led her into a private room with several Muggle neurologists, wizard Healers, and pediatricians. They ran tests while Draco and Astoria sat in Granger's office, waiting for the results.

Astoria continued to fidget as Granger flicked her wand, conjuring two cups of raspberry tea again. Draco noticed there were no pictures of family, of a husband, of children, on her desk. Just files, files, and more files. Granger flipped through the documentations and the reports the neurologists had taken, asked a series of questions for each parent, and then her eyebrows wiggled with suspicion.

"How very strange," she mused under her breath.

This made Astoria jump. "_What's_ strange?"

Hermione Granger's brown eyes looked from Draco's stoic expression to his wife's livid one. Draco kept still, to keep at least _half_ of the couple sane. She hesitated a bit, but grimaced while knitting her hands together across her cherry wood desk. "It seems as if Bijou is expressing the characteristics of Asperger's syndrome."

Draco looked from his wife's shattered face to Hermione's sorrowful one. "What is—?"

_"She can't!"_ Astoria sobbed, rising to her feet a bit unsteadily. "She's a _pureblood_, for Merlin's sake! You said it yourself … you … you said in your book, autism isn't found in pureblooded families!"

"It's not common," Hermione said quietly, "but … the labs of St. Mungo's are working on it. _I'm_ working on it. Believe me, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy"—Draco loathed how she insisted on being formal with them—"I want to know how this happened to Bijou as much as you do. There are other children, relatively around her age with the same blood status, that are experiencing the same behavior. Bijou performed excellent with language and expressed a lot of interest in Potions. But her social development skills are lacking, she hates make eye contact, and she is showing interest in only Wednesdays, the color yellow, and her potion kits. I've been doing a lot of work with the Autism Spectrum Disorders, and Asperger's has been classified as it. It isn't as extreme, or as severe, but … I'd like to keep a close eye on Bijou, if that's alright with both of you. I want her to be my first case with the lab consultants; as soon as St. Mungo's and the Ministry of Magic accept the funding loans, we can begin work on how these syndromes, disorders, and diseases are found in some Wizarding families." Dr. Granger paused to let this information sink in just as Draco's heart began to pound nervously in his chest. "Bijou is not _retarded_. She's not weird. She's definitely not a _freak_. She is extremely intelligent, in fact. She's just different from the rest of us. But who is to say that being different means being neglected?"

From the corner of his eye, Draco could see Astoria's bottom lip trembling as slivers of tears fell from her tear ducts like pieces of broken glass. She kept shaking her head in a very Narcissa Malfoy-like manner, a woeful act that only made Draco's ears pound with blood even harder.

Of course he was angry. He was angry and annoyed and all he wanted was to take Bijou home, hold her close to his heart, and take her back—take her back to four years before, when Astoria first told Draco she was expecting again, when Scorpius was still impressed with Draco's broomsticks, when Bijou didn't even _know_ Wednesdays and Potions and yellow existed.

He wanted to believe that he failed as a father, as a husband—as a _man_ in general. He wanted to believe that the neurologists and the Healers and the pediatricians had it all wrong; what did _they_ fucking know what went on in the mind of a four-year-old?

Astoria's anger spoke first: She rose to her feet and left the office, allowing the giggling toddlers and gurgling infants in the ward's waiting room to fill the emptiness of Granger's office. Draco sat there, blankly looking into Granger's softened eyes, before nodding curtly at her.

Before he exited, he let an exasperated breath out.

"When the Ministry allows St. Mungo's to fund for this project … owl me."

**oOo**

_Dinner was a _quiet affair; Narcissa and Lucius knew, from the swollen eyes of Astoria, that the appointment at St. Mungo's had not gone the way they had expected. Once dessert—tonight, the elves prepared a chocolate and strawberry parfait—had wrapped up, Narcissa asked her grandchildren to take leave to their rooms for the time being. Once Scorpius and Bijou scrambled, she reached for her daughter-in-law's hand.

That's when Astoria's second batch of tears came underway.

If there was one thing Draco despised, it was watching his mother or wife cry. It made him cringe; it made his stomach churn uncomfortably; it made his heart drop into his intestines; it made it feel like it was _his_ fault Astoria was sobbing incoherently. He gulped the knot in his throat, trying to find the correct batch of words to elaborate the purpose of Astoria's hysteria.

Lucius picked up on it, his lips turning into a thin frown. Narcissa bounced her eyes from son to husband, then back to Astoria before throwing her arms around her daughter-in-law. She had never expressed physical affection toward her before, not when they were dating, not during the engagement, and most certainly not during the wedding reception. She was not a cold woman, Draco knew, but it took a long time for Narcissa to warm up to Astoria. Seeing his mother tenderly soothe his wife made Draco slightly envious; why hadn't _he_ thought of this sooner?

"I refuse to believe it," Astoria choked out, clutching Narcissa's hand tightly as she finally managed to discover her vocal chords through her continuous tears. "Bijou is … she's … _Merlin,_ everyone is going to think my daughter is a _freak of nature_!"

Draco's eyes widened with fury. Since the end of the war, he had grown indifferent to how the rest of the Wizarding world thought of him and his slippery family. His father had done his part in Azkaban, and the Ministry let Draco and Narcissa go after Draco qualified top class—along with Potter, Weasley, and Blaise Zabini—as an Auror. The _Daily Prophet_ and _Witch Weekly_ liked to print nasty rumors and false tales of him, his marriage to Astoria, and his children too, but he had ignored all of it. He kept his head high.

But Astoria …

She was a socialite, along with the other pureblooded matriarchs of the aristocratic society. During her pregnancy with Scorpius, she had gained nearly fifteen pounds—and believed her image was a goner once her son was born. She feared more of her physical appearance than her amateur parenting skills. She feared what her sister, Daphne, would think. She feared of what Narcissa thought of her, raising two children with the help of midwives and house-elves. She feared, basically because she didn't want to be a failure. She wanted to be the prim and proper image, the modern-day Wonder Woman of what Narcissa Malfoy had been before the downfall of the Malfoy reputation.

But this was a low-blow, even for Draco's wife. Bijou's syndrome was not high up in the spectrum; Granger had made that very clear. So what if she obsessed over Wednesdays and potion kits? So what if she didn't like speaking to people in public? Quite frankly, he shared that in common with his daughter; he loathed making public appearances, speaking in front of an audience. He refused to believe she was, in Astoria's words, a _freak of nature_. Merlin, Bijou was just four years old. They were starting too young with the name-calling. Draco just wanted to keep a closer eye on her, give her just a bit of extra attention to show that _he_ cared, and that _he_ wasn't going to give up on his fatherhood to both Bijou and Scorpius.

There was a clatter in the background; the four heads of the table whipped around to see Bijou in her nightgown, holding a flobberworm in her hand with her pale gray eyes blankly looking at her mother, her lower lip jutted out over her upper.

"I'm not a _freak_," Bijou stated loudly and clearly. "I'm just _different_."

**oOo**

**[3 Months Later: July 2006]**

_They were sleeping _in separate beds. Astoria had taken leave to share a bed with her six-year-old son while reading him books on Quidditch; Draco fell asleep while watching Bijou create her own potions from the latest kit her grandfather had bought her. Her face had lit up as she unwrapped it, but she showed no affection—no hug, no kiss to the cheek, not even a simple _thank you_.

Astoria had gone out several times to parties with her single sister, Daphne, and Pansy. Draco, when he wasn't at the Auror Office with Potter, Weasley, and Zabini, busied himself with taking care of Scorpius and Bijou. Several times, he contacted Granger. Each time, she told him she was putting up a fight, but the Ministry was not giving them the amount of funds the lab consultants needed.

Their eighth year anniversary fell into a cold argument in which Astoria had conjured a duffel bag and a rucksack, collected herself to say goodbye to Narcissa and Lucius, kissed and hugged Scorpius and Bijou, and shot into Draco's face that the divorce papers would come soon enough.

_Just wait, Draco, _she had said, _you can focus as much time as you want trying to cure Bijou, but face it: she'll always be like this! _

He was surprised at how fast the fight had escalated; all he had asked was if she would join him in the dining room for dinner, just the two of them, since his parents were gone for the evening. She had snapped and the next thing he knew, they were arguing about Scorpius and about Bijou, recounting each other's failures, bringing each other's esteem down, and then Astoria marched into their wing of Malfoy Manor, threw the heirloom wedding ring right at Draco's cheek, and said she couldn't take it anymore.

_You're obsessed with finding a cure, or … or finding out what's _scientifically incorrect _about our daughter. And I can't take it when everyone asks me what's wrong with her, or why she won't look directly at me, or why she loves Wednesdays so much. And you know what? Scorpius knows, Draco! He knows his sister is a freak—_yes she is, Draco!—_and he can see how you show more attention to her than you do to him. You hardly even look at _me_, either!_

When Astoria had Apparated by the front gates, a house-elf gave Draco a shot of the finest, strongest, bitterest firewhiskey in the household. He drank until his lips vibrated, until his tongue went comatose, until the pain infiltrating his heart grew numb. When he stumbled into Scorpius's room to say goodnight, his son shook his head fiercely.

"I heard Mummy," he choked out; staring at his father with the same sneer he had once given everyone who crossed him. "Bijou isn't a freak, you told me. She's just different." He paused, a thoughtful glisten clouding his gray eyes. "But … Daddy … what _makes_ her different from us? Why is she like that?"

For the first time, he felt tears brim his eyes in a cold, guilty manner. In the other room, he heard Narcissa retelling Bijou the story of how she and Lucius had met. He knew Bijou was paying attention because every three minutes or so, she stopped to ask a difficult question. But, in his son's room, he rested his chin against the crown of Scorpius's bleach-blonde hair, recounting his failures to himself before finding the courage to speak.

"I don't know, son … but we're going to find out. I promise you we will. I won't let you down."

That was the first of the many promises Draco Malfoy began to break.

**oOo**

**[3 Months Later: October 2006]**

_The divorce was _finalized; Astoria was back to Greengrass, and both Scorpius and Bijou were under Draco's custody unless it was weekends and every other holiday. This year, Christmas was with the Malfoys; Easter was with the Greengrass's, and so on. Draco had moved out of the manor and into a small cottage on the outskirts of the suburbs, about twenty minutes from the Ministry of Magic and St. Mungo's.

Scorpius and Bijou were too little to understand the concept of divorce, so Draco left his mother to decide how to explain the move and the sudden fact that their mother would not be living with them. Bijou had stared at her grandmother contently, just months shy from turning five, but the paleness of her eyes and the heavy frown on her small, soft face only made Draco's neck hairs rise: _She thinks this is her fault._

Through time, the Auror Office grew increasingly greedy and asked for more of his time. He tried to work something out with the Head of the Office, notorious Scarhead Potter, and tried to explain that he was now a divorced father of two young kids. So Potter gave Draco a quill and parchment, telling him to owl his wife, Ginny, and ask if she could babysit for a small fee. Once she agreed, Scorpius had a new friend, James—but Bijou was reluctant to be around Albus and baby Lily, especially on Wednesdays.

It was hard for Draco to explain thoroughly to the Office of the purpose of the divorce. He didn't want to throw the blame, the burden, onto his daughter's diagnosed syndrome, and he didn't want pity from the fellow Aurors in the room. In the end, they went easy on Draco, but he did his job just as he had during Auror training; he pushed himself to the limit, locked several looming Dark wizards into Azkaban, and spent as long as he could with his children.

Draco had failed in his early life. Merlin, he had fucked up his adolescent years through ignorance, arrogance, and bigotry. He had ruined his chances of a clean slate, a new start, when he had been let go during his trial in the Wizengamot. He had to work overtime and provide passion to show not just the Auror Office, but the Ministry itself that he had changed. That he wasn't his father.

He had failed his marriage. He had neglected affection and love to Astoria. He believed he once wanted to grow old with her, but they felt like roommates, like strangers in the night roaming the manor, taking care of two kids that happened to be biologically theirs.

He wasn't going to fail fatherhood. After all, all parents are amateurs. No one really knows what the hell they're doing; for some it comes naturally. For others, like Draco, it takes time. But, unlike Astoria, he wasn't going to walk out. He wasn't going to abandon Scorpius and Bijou just because one might be special, or _different_. He was going to be loving and nurturing and patient. He was going to be what his father hadn't been to him.

He was going to give his kids a reason to truly call him "Dad".

**oOo**

**[4 Months Later: February 14, 2007]**

_Hermione had no _fucking clue as to why she received an invitation to Bijou Malfoy's fifth birthday party. It wasn't the first time she had been invited to her patients' birthdays, but it wasn't common to be owled by Draco Malfoy unless it was an emergency.

Lately, there had been a lot of them.

She knew that Draco and Astoria's marriage had ended with a brutal divorce, and that Draco had full custody for both children. (It had been all over _Witch Weekly_, her guilty pleasure.) She knew that the cause was evidently because of Bijou's diagnosis (kept out of _Witch Weekly _and the _Daily Prophet_). She knew that Draco had no idea how to be a single parent, juggling a high maintenance career and proving meals for both while one had a condition on the autism spectrum. It was all a blur; it was all a dream to him.

Lucky for Hermione, she liked Bijou. She was not only highly intelligent with an impeccably flawless vocabulary, but her quirky obsessions made the pediatrician realize that everyone had a strange interest or fetish. For instance, she liked Muggle romantic comedies while eating Thai takeout from the carton. So what?

Bijou was not the only pureblooded soon-to-be witch with a Muggle disorder. She was one of seven cases in the United Kingdom alone at St. Mungo's who was currently registered as a lab test. Once the Ministry of Magic agrees to fund for the projects and resources, Hermione and her team of neurologists, Healers, and pediatricians can form tests on how this came to be, scientifically speaking.

And lucky for Draco, she had a gift for him and the parents at the party (a bottle of firewhiskey for the fathers; a Pinot Noir for the classy ladies), and an excellent, state-of-the-art potions kit that came out days before for Bijou.

At first, she felt a bit like an outsider, like a stranger, in his home. It was very comfortable; it smelled like cinnamon, apples, and … children—_lots_ of them. Whether it was James Potter and Scorpius Malfoy hopping on toy broomsticks, or Blaise Zabini's daughter, Avelina, tottering about on her unsteady feet, no matter where Hermione turned there seemed to be a child and a hysteric parent chasing him or her.

She waved pleasantly to Bijou, who merely looked at her and the gifts in her hand. Within moments, her father appeared, looking a bit frazzled; a bit taken off-guard. "You came," he stated, his face flooded with relief.

"These are for the adults." Hermione handed him the firewhiskey and wine, adding quickly at his puzzled face, "The wine is Muggle-made."

He gave her a small smile and tipped his wand, conjuring glasses in midair for the adults to grab. In no time, Pinot Noir filled and nurtured the stressed parents. Draco glanced at Bijou, then back at Hermione. "She doesn't like company."

Hermione shrugged indifferently, watching Bijou strut her way back into her bedroom for solitary confinement and some silence. She hadn't realized it before, but the gift in her hand—the gift for Bijou—had been transferred into the little girl's arms.

"Is … Astoria and her family here?"

At the sound of his ex-wife's name, Draco Malfoy's face turned an icy pale, milky white. His alluring gray eyes crystallized with anger as he shook his head. "She came earlier, before the guests, with her sister Daphne. Scorpius hardly looked at her, and I'm pretty sure Bijou slipped some Bulgeye Potion into Daphne's drink because her eyes became swollen …"—he paused thoughtfully, his voice growing soft and fragile—"I'm doing the best I can."

Though Hermione didn't understand personally the pain a parent could possibly go through, she could feel it in the emptiness of his eyes, the shakiness of his voice. For this, she leaned forward and touched his upper arm gently, hesitantly. "No one is an expert, Draco. No one is a perfectionist. We aren't perfect. If you do what you're doing right now, keep doing it. You're doing a better job than _I_ probably could."

Ginny Weasley had caught sight of her best friend and ran over to distract Hermione into a conversation, plopping baby Lily into the pediatrician's arms. Hermione had wanted to speak to the Potters, yes, but she had wanted to talk one-on-one with Draco Malfoy … just to see how he was feeling, just to see how he was taking all this. Her life might have been shaken from the war, but so had his. And his life hadn't gotten any better. In fact, it worsened.

When Hermione looked over Ginny's shoulder, she saw Draco entering Bijou's bedroom, standing there stoic-like, without saying a word. He simply watched his daughter, watched her create the Hair-Raising Potion.

It wasn't a big father-daughter moment, not like what Harry had with Lily, or Blaise Zabini had with Avelina, or Dean Thomas had with Valerie, but it was enough to make Hermione's heart swell: _He's trying. He's not going to give up on her._

It was in that moment, watching Draco sit on the floor beside Bijou, listening to her explain each ingredient necessary for the Hair-Raising Potion, that made Hermione yearn for a family, a husband, of her own.

Some women, like Ginny, appreciated what Harry did. Ginny liked that her husband worked hard as an Auror, but she liked to stay at home to take care of James, Albus, and Lily. She also enjoyed it when her husband made time to be with his family. Lavender Brown, somewhere at the party with her fiancé, Seamus Finnigan, liked that, too; there was an even balance. She saw it moments before, with Pansy Parkinson and Adrian Pucey. She might have been just pregnant, but Pansy was an expecting patient of Hermione's; she did not take her husband for granted.

Then there were women, _greedy_ women, like Blaise's soon-to-be ex-wife, Mimi Winston, or Astoria Greengrass, for instance, liked money and power. They liked their aristocratic pureblooded mania and galore; they liked having a perfect image for _Witch Weekly_; they liked being the socialites for the Wizarding community. They would do anything to keep the spotlight. But once children came into the picture, Mimi dropped Blaise just after Avelina turned five months old. (Hermione only knew this because Blaise came after midnight with a screaming infant, not knowing how to cure her fever.) The same went to Astoria; she left because the pressures of her marriage were at the brink for Bijou's sake, for Bijou's diagnosed syndrome. She left Draco with a six and four year old. She left him with the work; with the job of being both father _and_ mother.

_Greedy fucking whores _was all Hermione could say when Mimi Winston and Astoria Greengrass came into the picture.

Hermione would walk over hot stones to have what Astoria and Mimi had brought into the world: children. And they had attractive, young, smart, successful husbands at their hips. But no, Astoria didn't like to have a _freak_ daughter. Hermione cringed just thinking about what she would do to Astoria if she ever saw her again. _What kind of _mother _are you?_

Hermione wanted what Astoria and Mimi had given up: family.

One way or another, Hermione Granger was going to get that.


End file.
